


junk mail

by moroodors



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dipper's Guide To The Unexplained, Gen, The Mailbox, mailbox au, what if, what if dipper got to ask the mailbox who the author was?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 04:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17399894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moroodors/pseuds/moroodors
Summary: what if, in dipper's guide to the unexplained #54, he was able to ask the mailbox who the author of journals was?





	junk mail

**Author's Note:**

> i was just re-watching the gravity falls shorts and had this idea during one of them, so i wrote about it. enjoy!

 

> _Who is the author of the Journals?_

Dipper folds the piece of lined paper in half, sweaty hands opening the mailbox and putting the letter inside. He takes a breath as he closes it, taking a step back.

Mabel looks like she is about to say something, having just walked over, but stops as the mailbox starts shaking. It stops a moment later. 

"Whoa!" Mabel says, "What was that?" 

"It's an all-knowing mailbox," Dipper says, suddenly nervous to open it, "Soos and I just asked it who the author is." 

"Wow," is all Mabel says as Dipper opens the mailbox, picking up the letter inside.

The world seems to be moving in slow motion as he turns over the letter, looking at the stamp with an infinity etched into it. He slides a finger and it pops off.  The paper appears to be yellowing and old, age written into it to match the mailbox. Briefly, Dipper wonders how old the mailbox actually is. The thought quickly leaves his mind as he opens the paper and sees the name staring back at him. 

"What?" Dipper asks, voicing his disbelief out-loud, because this can not be true, "How can this be?" 

"What does it say, Dipper?" Mabel asks, bouncing over to look for herself. She stands to one side of Dipper and Soos mirrors her. 

"Whoa, what?" Mabel says, a smile growing on her face. Dipper can tell she is excited at the prospect of a new mystery. 

"Dudes, it knew what I shaved into my head," Soos reminds and that is what Dipper is confused about. It somehow knew about Soos, so it has to be correct. Dipper's mind is just rejecting the answer. 

 

 

> _The author of the Journals is Stanford Filbrick Pines_

* * *

Dipper and Mabel burst through the front door of the Mystery Shack, running to Stan, who was in the middle of the tour.

(Soos had run home, saying something about his fanfiction.) 

"Ah, children," Stan says, talking to the group in front of him with a wave of his and still using his tour voice, "The greatest mystery of them all." He earns a few chuckles and nods from that one. 

"Now, look at that thing!" Stan says, pointing dramatically to another exhibit, everyone looks over there and starts interacting with it. Stan turns to Dipper and Mabel, still looking breathless from their run from the forest. "What do you want?" 

"Answers," Dipper says, mentally high-fiving himself for the cool line. He shoves the paper in Stan's face, which Stan takes and holds it farther from his face so he can actually read it. Dipper can see the moment in which Stan reads it because he pales and hands the paper back to Dipper. He looks nauseous. 

"Everyone out!" Stan shouts, looking shaky and very unlike himself, "Mystery Shack is closed." The tourists all scamper out and Stan sighs, shoulders falling. The kids follow Stan, who makes his way to the kitchen table, taking a heavy seat. Dipper and Mabel take a seat across from him.

"Where did you get this?" Stan asks, voice gruff again. Dipper remembers that Stan is a professional liar and wonders what other secrets he may be hiding. 

"From a magical all-knowing mailbox in the woods!" Mabel answers brightly. 

Stan sighs, looking older, "Of course you did." A moment of silence passes, Dipper wants to ask perhaps a million questions but stays patient. Stan asks another one first, "How much do you kids know?"

That basically confirmed that they were right and Dipper is practically vibrating, "That you wrote the journals." Dipper stops there, then thinks and adds, "And lied to us all summer about not knowing anything about the supernatural." 

Stan crosses his arms and looks at the floor, "Okay, I was lying about the supernatural part. But I did not write the journals." 

"Yes, you did," Dipper says immediately, "We made sure the mailbox was correct before. It has to be you."

Stan looks like he is considering something before speaking, "It is correct. I didn't write the journals, Stanford did."

"What?" Dipper and Mabel say at the same time. 

"But, you are Stanford," Mabel adds afterwards, sounding confused, understandably. 

Stan shakes his head, suddenly looking scared, "No, I'm not. My real name is Stanley Pines." 

"What?" Dipper speaks, "Why change your name? And to something so similar? And who is Stanford, then?" 

Stan suddenly stands up, "Follow me." And the kids do. The kids do until they reach Stan's bedroom door. They all go inside and Stan pulls a box from somewhere Dipper swears wasn't there a second ago. Stan sets in on the floor and Dipper and Mabel sit next to it.

Dipper reaches inside and pulls out a stack of IDs. As Dipper flips through them, they all show different names (all similar to Stanley Pines, Dipper notes) from different states, showcasing a young Stan. The last one is the only one with the name Stanley Pines, coming from New Jersey. 

Mabel reaches in and pulls out a newspaper, her eyes widen and she shows it to Dipper wordlessly. On the front in big bold letters is **STAN PINES DEAD**.

"What does this all mean?" Dipper asks, quietly. 

"I've been a lot of people in the past for different reasons," Stan says, "I stopped doing that thirty years ago, when I became Stanford Pines. I needed to convince everyone I was Stanford, so I faked a car crash to show everyone that Stanley Pines was dead."

Dipper still has the same amount of confusion than when he started, if not, perhaps more. "Why did you need to convince people you were Stanford? Why did you have to say you were dead? Who is Stanford?" 

Stan hands Dipper a yearbook from somewhere. Dipper opens it and sees only one signature on the front cover, written in big blocky letters. 

 

 

> _Sixer,_
> 
> _another year finished and another year closer to being out of this hell hole! the stan o' war is really coming along too._
> 
> _we're going to be seniors next year. can you believe that?? we're really becoming old men, aren't we?_
> 
> _i know we haven't been as close lately but remember whenever you need me, i'll be there. ~~i'll miss you when you're off in college~~  the world sucks but together we can get through anything. (the dynamic duo, remember!) _
> 
> _i love you, stanford._
> 
> _love,_
> 
> _stanley_

Dipper doesn't know what to make of that. He flips through the pages and stops when he sees a familiar name - two names, in fact. 

 

> _Stanford Pines_
> 
> _Stanley Pines_

Dipper follows the names to the pictures and his eyes widen. 

The first picture, Dipper thinks is Stan. He has messy, thick brown hair that's all over the place. He has rectangular glasses that look like the same ones that Stan is wearing today. He has a shy smile. His face is devoid of any wrinkles and Dipper is shocked that this is the first time he's seeing a young picture of Stan. 

Except, Dipper looks at the next picture and takes a sharp breath. Undoubtedly, the two are identical twins. There are some differences though, the hair being the biggest one in the picture, as the second person has his hair slicked back. He also doesn't have any glasses, and a small bit of acne with a large crooked smile on his face. 

Mabel had come over to look, too, "Stanford is your twin brother?" Stan nods.

'Why are you pretending to be him? How come we have never heard of him?" Dipper itches to pull out his notebook and take notes but resists. 

Stan takes a heavy seat on his bed, "I'll just start from the beginning, but keep in mind, I don't have the full story." Both Dipper and Mabel nod and Stan starts his tale. 

Stan tells about two New Jersey boys against the world. Building boats and fighting rival twins. Six fingers and genius IQ's. They didn't have friends but they had each other. Their last year of high school came. Broken projects and broken dreams. Stan was kicked out. He had a rough ten years on the street. Stanford called to Stan for help, Stan came running to Gravity Falls. Stan doesn't know how Stanford got to Gravity Falls. They had a short meeting that resulted in Stanford falling into a inter-dimensional portal. 

"So," Dipper says quietly after minutes of silence, "That's what your tattoo is. A burn."

Stan nods and continues his story. How he started the Mystery Shack, how he began his life as Stanford, how he faked his own death, how he fooled his own family that he was his brother, how he has been working for thirty years to try and get his brother back. 

"Good thing Ford is a recluse, our mother couldn't even tell," Stan says as a sort of ending with an old sadness. 

"How did you fool them?" Mabel asks, "You said that Great Uncle Ford has six fingers."

Stan gains a smile when Mabel says  _Great Uncle Ford_. Stan shows where there are two scars on his hands, one on each. "Said I got surgery." Is all he says.  

Suddenly, an idea pops into Dipper's head."Couldn't you ask the mailbox about Great Uncle Ford?" 

Stan seems to be confused but Mabel is able to pick up on what Dipper is saying. "Yes! You could ask it how to fix the portal and how to get Great Uncle Ford home!" 

Stan thinks for a moment and then shrugs, "Sure, why not." 

* * *

And so, roughly a half a hour later, the twins with a complaining Stan are standing in front of the old mailbox in the middle of the woods. On a piece of paper, Dipper has written  _How can Stan get Ford home tomorrow?_

(Originally, Dipper had written _How can the portal be fixed?_  but then Stan said he knew now how to do it because he had found the third journal. Dipper was shocked, to say the least, when he learned that Stan had all three of them now. But then Dipper had changed the question to  _How can Stan get Ford home?_  but then Mabel pointed out the mailbox could give them an answer that would work in another thirty years or something dumb like that. They all could agreed on they ended up with.)

Dipper puts the paper in and Stan looks skeptical but it disappears when the mailbox starts moving. It stops and Dipper pulls out a new paper, or multiple papers. It seems to be a whole packet of instructions with complicated math that Dipper can't even make sense of. 

Dipper hands it wearily to Stan, "Here, but it looks really complicated-"

"Of course!" Stan yells, interrupting Dipper. "It's so obvious!" Stan has a wide smile on his face, eyes darting across each page as he scans through the packet. "Thanks mailbox!" Stan shouts out before darting back to the Mystery Shack, still looking at the papers as he runs. 

Dipper and Mabel share an excited look and chase after Stan. 

* * *

When they arrive back at the Mystery Shack and go inside, they can't find Stan anywhere. They take seats at the kitchen table. 

"This is crazy," Mabel starts, looking alight with eagerness, "We have another great uncle. And we finally got to hear Stan's tragic back story!" 

"Yeah," Dipper says with a nod, "I can't believe Stan hasn't seen his brother in thirty years. And it had been ten years before that. All over a dumb fight."

Mabel nods grimly, "It's so sad!" Mabel then quiets and looks off, biting her lip. "Promise me we won't end up like them, Dipper?" 

Dipper smiles something small, "I promise."

Mabel smiles her usual wide thing back but Dipper can see that she is still worrying. "Want to go watch a movie? I'll let you pick."

Dipper comes to regret this decision as Mabel picks some teen drama involving inaccurate vampires and the like. But it helps Mabel forget about her worries for a while, so it's worth it. 

(Mabel also knows that Dipper likes pointing out the inaccuracies in her movies, and she likes the hot guys, so its a win-win.)

* * *

They fell asleep in the living room. However, they are woken up just past midnight at the loud bang. 

They both sit up and look at each other, listening to the voices that follow. "Wow, can you open the door any louder?" 

A voice responds, unfamiliar, "Oh, I am just  _so_  sorry. I am not used to  _my_  lab entrance being covered by a  _vending machine_ , of all things, and did not know the appropriate force required to open it."

"Quiet, Pointdexter," The other voice responds and Dipper can now recognize it as Stan, "It's the middle of the night."

"We are in the middle of a forest," The other person says, voice and footsteps getting louder, "Who will hear me- oh." 

The person had just walked into the living room and turned on the lights to see Mabel and Dipper on the ground. 

He's tall, with a long black coat and all dark clothes. Dipper does not know who he is until he sees his face.

Until this moment, it had not hit Dipper fully that Stan had a twin brother. Amazingly, they have been apart thirty years and have the same haircut, albeit Stan's is a little shorter. Now, Dipper could very much believe that nobody could tell that Stan was masquerading as his brother. 

Stan appears next to his brother and groans, "Oh, great Ford. You woke them up." 

Ford looks shaken, "Apologies." 

"It's okay, Great Uncle Ford!" Mabel says, bouncing up from the floor. She goes over to Ford and holds her hand out, "I'm Mabel, your great niece!" 

Ford smiles and kneels down, taking Mabel's small hand in his own. "Greetings - Do people still say 'greetings?' I haven't been in the dimension in a long time."

Mabel ignores him, distracted as she gasps, "Wow! A six-fingered hand-shake! A whole finger-friendlier than normal!" 

Ford smiles wider as he stands back up, turning to Stan, "I like her, she's weird."  

"And this is Dipper!" Mabel says, pulling Dipper up and throwing her arm over his shoulder, "My brother! We're twins, too!" 

"You wrote the journals," Dipper says, rather dumbly. 

Ford is about to say something back when Stan interrupts, "Nope. No, not going to happen. You guys can have your nerd talk in the morning. It's late and everyone is going to bed." 

Dipper hears a, "You sound like dad" and a gagging noise that follows as he goes upstairs for bed. He lays down but can't fall asleep for a long time, too excited about the future. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Mailbox Knows All](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19428661) by [Kittyaceres](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittyaceres/pseuds/Kittyaceres)




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